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The year 2013 and email marketing was about rising above the crowded inbox.

We created this blog to be a resource for email marketers: we cover industry news, highlight success stories and suggest the best tips and tricks we can find. And while we didn't set out to focus on a particular theme this year, looking back over 2013, it's clear that marketers, consultants and technology providers were concerned throughout the year with not getting lost in an over-crowded inbox.

In 2013, we highlighted successful marketers that use attractive design to win conversions. We talked to email managers whose focus on relevant content delivered results and marketers who relied on strong relationships with subscribers to be successful. We saw (just about) everyone freak out while Gmail tried to create a less intimidating inbox for users and the search for the "perfect" subject line continued.

So to close out 2013, we present the top posts from this year about standing out in the inbox.

Symbols and Pictographs help your subject line get noticed. We looked at whether symbols are worth including in subject lines a year ago. The post, a practical guide for marketers, has been a top destination on our blog all year long.

Marketers report that the symbols can, in the short term and when used sparingly, produce a lift in opens for an important campaign. Read the post.

Gmail streamlines the inbox. Marketers panic. We saw two big stories in email marketing this year about Google's changes to how Gmail works. Both were an effort by Google to improve the inbox experience for Gmail.com users. And both announcements sent marketers into a full-blown — and in our analysis — unnecessary, panic.

First, Gmail rolled out tabbed inboxes for users of Gmail.com. The change, an effort to make the inbox less crowded, sorted messages into tabs (Primary, Social, Promotions). Not only did tabs not kill email marketing, we think they'll help marketers who are sending quality content see even more engagement. Read the post.

Just last month, Google announced that it would cache all images on Gmail.com. By copying images and hosting them on its own servers, Gmail would be able to display images by default. We think the change will be a positive for email marketing. Read the post.

Relevant content works. This isn't a new development for 2013, but we noticed some of the biggest email successes we highlighted this year make a habit of delivering relevant content to subscribers.

Air Filters Delivered, which sells home air filters online, uses a simple and clever system to prompt customers to re-order filters at exactly the right time. The automated messages drive sales and customer loyalty. Read the post.

Another success story, Mississippi-based nonprofit The Parents' Campaign, delivers up-to-the-second news and information about legislation affecting public education. Subscribers get real time updates and easy-to-follow instructions on how to weigh in on bills. Read the post.

It's why Mitzvah Market, a newsletter resource for parents preparing for a child’s bar or bat mitzvah, retains subscribers even after the party ends. Read the post.

Relationships are at the heart of how Pizza Free, which sells fat-free and gluten-free frozen pizza online, uses email to drive repeat sales. Read the post.

"Email is still a personal, one-to-one medium," concluded the authors of a study showing that email remains the best way to get customers to promote your brand to their friends and family. Read the post.

Images work, if used correctly. The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University used heat maps and other reporting data to discover that their subscribers were more likely to click on images than text links. The result: a successful redesign and better engagement. Read the post.

Images are a vital part of creating engaging email messages. Smart marketers use those images to create inviting designs, but they know their message must still make sense, even without pictures. We reviewed some basic techniques for incorporating images. Read the post.

Beckley Boutique, a high-end fashion retailer uses stunning images, including animated GIFs, to boost online traffic by as much as 40 percent. Read the post.

What about you? What trends did you see in 2013? What are you expecting for 2014? Sound off in the comments.